The U.S. Supreme Court case Healy v. The Beer Institute in 1988 revolved around a Connecticut statute that required beer shippers to affirm that their posted prices for products were, at minimum, as high as the prices they charged in bordering states during the preceding month. This was intended to prevent out-of-state brewers from undercutting local competition with lower prices. However, this law was challenged by several beer companies who argued it violated the Commerce Clause of the Constitution which prohibits states from passing legislation that discriminates against or excessively burdens interstate commerce. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the beer companies and struck down Connecticut's pricing scheme on grounds it directly regulated commerce occurring wholly outside its borders - a violation of what is known as "the extraterritoriality doctrine". The court held such regulations are virtually per se invalid under Commerce Clause jurisprudence because they lead to inconsistent legislation arising from different state policies and create undue burden on interstate commerce.

In the dissenting opinion for Healy v. The Beer Institute, it was argued that Connecticut's beer price affirmation law did not violate the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. This law required out-of-state shippers to affirm that their prices in Connecticut were no higher than those in neighboring states, aiming to prevent brewers and wholesalers from exploiting its market while selling cheaper elsewhere. The dissenting justices believed this regulation was a legitimate exercise of state power designed to protect consumers against price discrimination or predatory pricing practices by large corporations with substantial market power. They disagreed with the majority view that such laws inherently regulated commerce occurring wholly outside state borders and thus violated the Commerce Clause; instead, they saw these regulations as affecting interstate commerce only indirectly or incidentally rather than controlling it directly.